


Flowers

by Here2BeQueer



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Artist Gerard Way, Fluff, M/M, Photographer Frank, Slow Burn, Smut, it was adorable, remember when gee said frank is good at photography?, whatever, wow ok frank isn't usually a photographer in these
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 18:09:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7542745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Here2BeQueer/pseuds/Here2BeQueer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After meeting in a botanical garden, Frank and Gerard's relationship blossoms much like the surrounding flowers.</p>
<p>Rated E for language and smut in later chapters. Frerard, no other significant ships.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flowers

“They’re beautiful, aren’t they? The flowers.”

A heavily tattooed man looked up at the speaker in surprise. “Yeah, they are.”

“And the smell…”

“Euphoric.” The man smiled. “What’s your name, stranger?”

“I’m Gerard,” he said, brushing black hair out of tired-looking eyes. He bore a lopsided smile that showed his top row of teeth. “What about you?”

“Frank,” he replied, shifting his position on the emerald grass. He blinked up at the leaves above, rustling with the wind; the occasional petal fell and landed on the grass nearby.

“I haven’t seen you before,” prompted Gerard, turning to face Frank.

“Why? Do you come here often?” 

“I’ve come here every Sunday morning for two years.”

Frank uttered a small “Huh,” and found sudden interest in a small black beetle crawling through the grass. “That accent of yours… Where is it from?”

Gerard let out a nervous giggle, similar to that of a hyena. “Is it weird?”

“No, it’s sort of endearing.” Frank grinned and met eyes with him.

“You have pretty eyes,” Gerard pointed out. “They’re like... a beetle. You know, one of the shiny green ones that look gold in the sun. I, uh… they’re nice-looking eyes.”

Frank beamed at the ground and stuttered out a “thank you”. The two men sat in silence for a moment, cicadas singing from above and sunlight filtered by the trees dancing along the ground. A browned magnolia flower fell from its home petal by petal, landing scattered between the two. In the distance, the sound of people talking broke the atmosphere of complete calm, but at the same time added to the serenity. Frank was the first to break the silence between them.

“So what do you do for a living? You seem like you’d have an interesting job.”

“I’m a comic book artist. It doesn’t pay all that well, but it’s what I like to do,” Gerard said, emitting another giggle. He gestured to Frank’s many tattoos. ”What are you, a tattoo artist?”

“Do I really have that many? No, I’m a freelance photographer.”

“Is that why you’re here?

“No, not really.” Frank sighed and looked around the garden. “Sometimes I like to look at pretty things without capturing them, you know? Constantly trying to get the perfect shot is stressful compared to just… sitting and enjoying the view. It’s freeing.”

“I know what you mean,” said Gerard, letting a ladybug crawl onto his finger. “It’s the same with art. You see a beautiful thing and you think to yourself, ‘wow, I want to draw that and recreate the beautiful thing,’ but at some point you just get sick of creating your own beauty. You want to admire the beauty that happens naturally without anyone interfering.”

Frank chuckled. “It’s a botanical garden. People are constantly interfering.”

“Well, the trees still grow on their own and the butterflies get grown somewhere else before they come here,” Gerard brushed his hair away again, as a breeze had blown it back into his eyes. “The wildlife isn’t interfered with, I guess. There’s rules against it to keep the beauty there.”

“You have a point there, I guess.”

A gust of wind hit the garden and the magnolia petals on the ground flew into the air, swirling around like snowflakes in a storm. The ladybug Gerard had been watching decided to fly away with the petals.

"What do you take pictures of?" Gerard asked.

"Lots of things. Mostly nature. I do portraits as well, but I mainly like to go outdoors and take pictures of whatever's out and about being pretty."

"Am I pretty enough to photograph?"

"Out here?" Frank examined the scenery around them. "You might just be."

More silence between the two. A mockingbird in a tree above them started singing.

"Am I pretty enough to draw?" Frank looked over to Gerard.

"Absolutely. I'd love to get those eyes on paper."

"Don't flatter me."

"Hey, you asked," Gerard giggled.

"You laugh a lot." said Frank.

"I do not," Gerard said, giggling for the umpteenth time.

"You really do. Is it a nervous habit?"

"I guess."

A sudden gust of wind hit the trees above and the sunlight on the ground moved more rapidly. The cicadas got louder, annoyed by the disturbance, but quieted down along with the wind.

“Do you think the cicadas are sentient?” Gerard said, almost to himself.

“Sentient? Like does it have a brain?”

“No, like does it have thoughts and emotions.”

“I think that anything that reacts to things around it has thoughts, but in the form of something other than words. Like pictures.”

“What about blind animals? They can’t really think pictures, or colors.”

“Huh. That’s true.” Frank squinted his eyes and tilted his head to the sky. “I don’t know. Maybe they think in sounds? Or shapes. Even if you’ve never seen anything you should be able to imagine shapes. Plus, like when you’re   
angry or hurt, you sometimes see red, so I think maybe some colors are built into you.”

“Plants react to sunlight.”

“Anything with a brain.”

“Jellyfish-“

“You wanted to hear my opinion, so I gave it.”

A butterfly came into view, bouncing on and off of flowers.

“I think if something responds to kindness then it’s sentient.”

“What do you mean?” Frank turned to face Gerard once again, but his expression remained the same.

“Like, if you were to give a hungry dog a steak, then it would protect you or at least avoid biting or scratching you. And crows; I- I read somewhere that they return favors, and, uh, help other crows if they need it.”

“You’ve put a lot of thought into this, haven’t you?” Frank said with a small smile on his face.

“I suppose I have.” Gerard replied. He noticed Frank fidgeted with his hands a lot. His tattoos writhed with them, making it impossible to tell what they were, but Gerard could see a few letters dancing around. “The tattoos on   
your hands… what do they say?”

“What? My- oh.” Frank put his knuckles together. “This one says ‘Halloween.’”

“Why’s that?”

“It’s, um, when I was born. October thirty-first.” He continued to link his hands together, reading, ‘BOOKWØRM.’ “This is a recent one. I think it’s self explanatory.” He pointed to a spider web on his right hand. “This one says ‘hopeless,’ and,” he pointed to half a heart on his left, “This one says ‘Romantic.’ See, they go together,” He put his hands together, forming a vague heart.

“That’s cute. No wait, no, I didn’t mean that. I mean, uh, pretty. Clever.”

Frank chuckled. “Nah, I get it, man.”

The sun was beginning to come down from its high. The shadows of the trees had almost completely moved from where they were when Frank and Gerard had started talking. The cicadas had gotten fractionally louder by the   
minute, excited for darker hours. 

“You got a watch?” Frank stretched his legs out in front of him.

“Yeah, uh, I’ll look.” Gerard checked his wrist. “Oh, what the fuck? It’s 3:30 already.”

“Huh. Time flies, then.”

“It really does.”

“I guess…”

“Yeah.”

They stood up, shaking their legs out. Frank held out his hand. “It was cool meeting you, Gerard.”

Gerard took Frank’s hand and shook it. “Uh, you too.” They met eyes one last time, neither seeming to want to leave. Gerard dropped Frank’s hand and stepped back. “See you.”

“Bye.”

The two finally parted ways, each of them hoping they would see the other again very soon.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Feel free to comment, I appreciate all feedback. Have a nice day!


End file.
